The Yemen Hidden Agenda: Behind the Al-Qaeda Scenarios, A Strategic Oil Transit Chokepoint

Global Research, January 5, 2010

On December 25 US
authorities arrested a Nigerian named Abdulmutallab aboard a Northwest
Airlines flight from Amsterdam to Detroit on charges of having tried to
blow up the plane with smuggled explosives. Since then reports have
been broadcast from CNN, the New York Times and other sources that he
was "suspected" of having been trained in Yemen for his terror mission.
What the world has been subjected to since is the emergence of a new
target for the US ‘War on Terror,’ namely a desolate state on the
Arabian Peninsula, Yemen. A closer look at the background suggests the
Pentagon and US intelligence have a hidden agenda in Yemen.

For some months the world has
seen a steady escalation of US military involvement in Yemen, a
dismally poor land adjacent to Saudi Arabia on its north, the Red Sea
on its west, the Gulf of Aden on its south, opening to the Arabian Sea,
overlooking another desolate land that has been in the headlines of
late, Somalia. The evidence suggests that the Pentagon and US
intelligence are moving to militarize a strategic chokepoint for the
world’s oil flows, Bab el-Mandab, and using the Somalia piracy
incident, together with claims of a new Al Qaeda threat arising from
Yemen, to militarize one of the world’s most important oil transport
routes. In addition, undeveloped petroleum reserves in the territory
between Yemen and Saudi Arabia are reportedly among the world’s
largest.

The 23-year-old Nigerian man
charged with the failed bomb attempt, Abdulmutallab, reportedly has
been talking, claiming he was sent on his mission by Al Qaeda in the
Arabian Peninsula (AQAP), based in Yemen. This has conveniently turned
the world’s attention on Yemen as a new center of the alleged Al Qaeda
terror organization.

Notably, Bruce Riedel, a
30-year CIA veteran who advised President Obama on the policy leading
to the Afghan troop surge, wrote in his blog of the alleged ties of the
Detroit bomber to Yemen, "The attempt to destroy Northwest Airlines
Flight 253 en route from Amsterdam to Detroit on Christmas Day
underscores the growing ambition of Al Qaeda's Yemen franchise, which
has grown from a largely Yemeni agenda to become a player in the global
Islamic jihad in the last year…The weak Yemeni government of President
Ali Abdallah Salih, which has never fully controlled the country and
now faces a host of growing problems, will need significant American
support to defeat AQAP."[1].

Some basic Yemen geopolitics

Before we can say much about
the latest incident, it is useful to look more closely at the Yemen
situation. Here several things stand out as peculiar when stacked
against Washington’s claims about a resurgent Al Qaeda organization in
the Arabian Peninsula.

In early 2009 the chess pieces
on the Yemeni board began to move. Tariq al-Fadhli, a former jihadist
leader originally from South Yemen, broke a 15 year alliance with the
Yemeni government of President Ali Abdullah Saleh and announced he was
joining the broad-based opposition coalition known as the Southern
Movement (SM). Al-Fadhli had been a member of the Mujahideen movement
in Afghanistan in the late 1980’s. His break with the government was
reported in Arab and Yemeni media in April 2009. Al-Fadhli’s break with
the Yemen dictatorship gave new power to the Southern Movement (SM). He
has since become a leading figure in the alliance.

Yemen itself is a synthetic
amalgam created after the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1990, when
the southern Peoples’ Democratic Republic of Yemen (PDRY) lost its main
foreign sponsor. Unification of the northern Yemen Arab Republic and
the southern PDRY state led to a short-lived optimism that ended in a
brief civil war in 1994, as southern army factions organized a revolt
against what they saw as the corrupt crony state rule of northern
President Ali Abdullah Saleh. President Saleh has held a one-man rule
since 1978, first as President of North Yemen (the Yemen Arab Republic)
and since 1990 as President of the unified new Yemen. The southern army
revolt failed as Saleh enlisted al-Fadhli and other Yemeni Salafists,
followers of a conservative interpretation of Islam, and jihadists to
fight the formerly Marxist forces of the Yemen Socialist Party in the
south.

Before 1990, Washington and the
Saudi Kingdom backed and supported Saleh and his policy of Islamization
as a bid to contain the communist south.[2] Since then Saleh has relied
on a strong Salafist-jihadi movement to retain a one-man dictatorial
rule. The break with Saleh by al-Fadhli and his joining the southern
opposition group with his former socialist foes marked a major setback
for Saleh.

Soon after al-Fadhli joined the
Southern Movement coalition, on April 28, 2009 protests in the southern
Yemeni provinces of Lahj, Dalea and Hadramout intensified. There were
demonstrations by tens of thousands of dismissed military personnel and
civil servants demanding better pay and benefits, demonstrations that
had been taking place in growing numbers since 2006. The April
demonstrations included for the first time a public appearance by
al-Fadhli. His appearance served to change a long moribund southern
socialist movement into a broader nationalist campaign. It also
galvanized President Saleh, who then called on Saudi Arabia and other
Gulf Cooperation Council states for help, warning that the entire
Arabian Peninsula would suffer the consequences.

Complicating the picture in
what some call a failed state, in the north Saleh faces an al-Houthi
Zaydi Shi’ite rebellion. On September 11, 2009, in an Al-Jazeera TV
interview, Saleh accused Iraq’s Shi’ite opposition leader, Muqtada
al-Sadr, and also Iran, of backing the north Yemen Shi’ite Houthist
rebels in an Al-Jazeera TV interview. Yemen’s Saleh declared, "We
cannot accuse the Iranian official side, but the Iranians are
contacting us, saying that they are prepared for a mediation. This
means that the Iranians have contacts with them [the Houthists], given
that they want to mediate between the Yemeni government and them. Also,
Muqtada al-Sadr in al-Najaf in Iraq is asking that he be accepted as a
mediator. This means they have a link."[3]

Yemen authorities claim they
have seized caches of weapons made in Iran, while the Houthists claim
to have captured Yemeni equipment with Saudi Arabian markings, accusing
Sana’a (the capital of Yemen and site of the US Embassy) of acting as a
Saudi proxy. Iran has rejected claims that Iranian weapons were found
in north Yemen, calling claims of support to the rebels as baseless. [4]

What about Al Qaeda?

The picture that emerges is one
of a desperate US-backed dictator, Yemen’s President Saleh,
increasingly losing control after two decades as despotic ruler of the
unified Yemen. Economic conditions in the country took a drastic
downward slide in 2008 when world oil prices collapsed. Some 70% of the
state revenues derive from Yemen’s oil sales. The central government of
Saleh sits in former North Yemen in Sana’a, while the oil is in former
South Yemen. Yet Saleh controls the oil revenue flows. Lack of oil
revenue has made Saleh’s usual option of buying off opposition groups
all but impossible.

Into this chaotic domestic
picture comes the January 2009 announcement, prominently featured in
select Internet websites, that Al Qaeda, the alleged global terrorist
organization created by the late CIA-trained Saudi, Osama bin Laden,
has opened a major new branch in Yemen for both Yemen and Saudi
operations.

Al Qaeda in Yemen released a
statement through online jihadist forums Jan. 20, 2009 from the group’s
leader Nasir al-Wahayshi, announcing formation of a single al Qaeda
group for the Arabian Peninsula under his command. According to
al-Wahayshi, the new group, al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, would
consist of his former Al Qaeda in Yemen, as well as members of the
defunct Saudi Al Qaeda group. The press release claimed, interestingly
enough, that a Saudi national, a former Guantanamo detainee (Number
372), Abu-Sayyaf al-Shihri, would serve as al-Wahayshi’s deputy.

Days later an online video from
al-Wahayshi appeared under the alarming title, "We Start from Here and
We Will Meet at al-Aqsa." Al-Aqsa refers to the al-Aqsa Mosque in
Jerusalem that Jews know as Temple Mount, the site of the destroyed
Temple of Solomon, which Muslims call Al Haram Al Sharif. The video
threatens Muslim leaders -- including Yemeni’s President Saleh, the
Saudi royal family, and Egyptian President Mubarak -- and promises to
take the jihad from Yemen to Israel to "liberate" Muslim holy sites and
Gaza, something that would likely detonate World War III if anyone were
mad enough to do it.

Also in that video, in addition
to former Guantanamo inmate al-Shihri, is a statement from
Abu-al-Harith Muhammad al-Awfi, identified as a field commander in the
video, and allegedly former Guantanamo detainee 333. As it is
well-established that torture methods are worthless to obtain truthful
confessions, some have speculated that the real goal of CIA and
Pentagon interrogators at Guantanamo prison since September 2001, has
been to use brutal techniques to train or recruit sleeper terrorists
who can be activated on command by US intelligence, a charge difficult
to prove or disprove. The presence of two such high-ranking Guantanamo
graduates in the new Yemen-based Al Qaeda is certainly ground for
questioning.

Al Qaeda in Yemen is apparently
anathema to al-Fadhli and the enlarged mass-based Southern Movement. In
an interview, al-Fadhli declared, "I have strong relations with all of
the jihadists in the north and the south and everywhere, but not with
al-Qaeda."[5] That has not hindered Saleh from claiming the Southern
Movement and al Qaeda are one and the same, a convenient way to insure
backing from Washington.

According to US intelligence reports, there are a grand total of perhaps 200 Al Qaeda members in southern Yemen. [6]

Al-Fadhli gave an interview
distancing himself from al Qaeda in May 2009, declaring, "We [in South
Yemen] have been invaded 15 years ago and we are under a vicious
occupation. So we are busy with our cause and we do not look at any
other cause in the world. We want our independence and to put an end to
this occupation."[7] Conveniently, the same day, Al Qaeda made a large
profile declaring its support for southern Yemen’s cause.

On May 14, in an audiotape
released on the internet, al-Wahayshi, leader of al Qaeda in the
Arabian Peninsula, expressed sympathy with the people of the southern
provinces and their attempt to defend themselves against their
"oppression," declaring, "What is happening in Lahaj, Dhali, Abyan and
Hadramaut and the other southern provinces cannot be approved. We have
to support and help [the southerners]." He promised retaliation: "The
oppression against you will not pass without punishment… the killing of
Muslims in the streets is an unjustified major crime." [8]

The curious emergence of a tiny
but well-publicized al Qaeda in southern Yemen amid what observers call
a broad-based popular-based Southern Movement front that eschews the
radical global agenda of al Qaeda, serves to give the Pentagon a kind
of casus belli to escalate US military operations in the strategic
region.

Indeed, after declaring that
the Yemen internal strife was Yemen’s own affair, President Obama
ordered air strikes in Yemen. The Pentagon claimed its attacks on
December 17 and 24 killed three key al Qaeda leaders but no evidence
has yet proven this. Now the Christmas Day Detroit bomber drama gives
new life to Washington’s "War on Terror" campaign in Yemen. Obama has
now offered military assistance to the Saleh Yemen government.

Somali Pirates escalate as if on cue

As if on cue, at the same time
CNN headlines broadcast new terror threats from Yemen, the long-running
Somalia pirate attacks on commercial shipping in the same Gulf of Aden
and Arabian Sea across from southern Yemen escalated dramatically after
having been reduced by multinational ship patrols.

On December 29, Moscow’s RAI
Novosti reported that Somali pirates seized a Greek cargo vessel in the
Gulf of Aden off Somalia's coast. Earlier the same day a
British-flagged chemical tanker and its 26 crew were also seized in the
Gulf of Aden. In a sign of sophisticated skills in using western media,
pirate commander Mohamed Shakir told the British newspaper The Times by
phone, "We have hijacked a ship with [a] British flag in the Gulf of
Aden late yesterday." The US intelligence brief, Stratfor, reports that
The Times, owned by neo-conservative financial backer, Rupert Murdoch,
is sometimes used by Israeli intelligence to plant useful stories.

The two latest events brought a
record number of attacks and hijackings for 2009. As of December 22,
attacks by Somali pirates in the Gulf of Aden and the east coast of
Somalia numbered 174, with 35 vessels hijacked and 587 crew taken
hostage so far in 2009, almost all successful pirate activity,
according to the International Maritime Bureau's Piracy Reporting
Center. The open question is, who is providing the Somali "pirates"
with arms and logistics sufficient to elude international patrols from
numerous nations?

Notably, on January 3,
President Saleh got a phone call from Somali president Sheikh Sharif
Sheikh Ahmed in which he briefed president Saleh on latest developments
in Somalia. Sheikh Sharif, whose own base in Mogadishu is so weak he is
sometimes referred to as President of Mogadishu Airport, told Saleh he
would share information with Saleh about any terror activities that
might be launched from Somali territories targeting stability and
security of Yemen and the region.

The Oil chokepoint and other oily affairs

The strategic significance of
the region between Yemen and Somalia becomes the point of geopolitical
interest. It is the site of Bab el-Mandab, one of what the US
Government lists as seven strategic world oil shipping chokepoints. The
US Government Energy Information Agency states that "closure of the Bab
el-Mandab could keep tankers from the Persian Gulf from reaching the
Suez Canal/Sumed pipeline complex, diverting them around the southern
tip of Africa. The Strait of Bab el-Mandab is a chokepoint between the
horn of Africa and the Middle East, and a strategic link between the
Mediterranean Sea and Indian Ocean." [9]

Bab el-Mandab, between Yemen,
Djibouti, and Eritrea connects the Red Sea with the Gulf of Aden and
the Arabian Sea. Oil and other exports from the Persian Gulf must pass
through Bab el-Mandab before entering the Suez Canal. In 2006, the
Energy Department in Washington reported that an estimated 3.3 million
barrels a day of oil flowed through this narrow waterway to Europe, the
United States, and Asia. Most oil, or some 2.1 million barrels a day,
goes north through the Bab el-Mandab to the Suez/Sumed complex into the
Mediterranean.

An excuse for a US or NATO
militarization of the waters around Bab el-Mandab would give Washington
another major link in its pursuit of control of the seven most critical
oil chokepoints around the world, a major part of any future US
strategy aimed at denying oil flows to China, the EU or any region or
country that opposes US policy. Given that significant flows of Saudi
oil pass through Bab el-Mandab, a US military control there would serve
to deter the Saudi Kingdom from becoming serious about transacting
future oil sales with China or others no longer in dollars, as was
recently reported by UK Independent journalist Robert Fisk.

It would also be in a position
to threaten China’s oil transport from Port Sudan on the Red Sea just
north of Bab el-Mandab, a major lifeline in China’s national energy
needs.

In addition to its geopolitical
position as a major global oil transit chokepoint, Yemen is reported to
hold some of the world’s greatest untapped oil reserves. Yemen’s Masila
Basin and Shabwa Basin are reported by international oil companies to
contain "world class discoveries."[10] France’s Total and several
smaller international oil companies are engaged in developing Yemen’s
oil production. Some fifteen years ago I was told in a private meeting
with a well-informed Washington insider that Yemen contained "enough
undeveloped oil to fill the oil demand of the entire world for the next
fifty years." Perhaps there is more to Washington’s recent Yemen
concern than a rag-tag al Qaeda whose very existence as a global terror
organization has been doubted by seasoned Islamic experts.

F. William Engdahl is the author of Full Spectrum Dominance: Totalitarian Democracy in the New World Order

Notes

1. Bruce Riedel, The Menace of Yemen, December 31, 2009, accessed in http://www.thedailybeast.com/blogs-and-stories/2009-12-31/the-menace-of-yemen/?cid=tag:all1.

2. Stratfor, Yemen: Intensifying Problems for the Government, May 7, 2009.

3. Cited in Terrorism Monitor,
Yemen President Accuses Iraq’s Sadrists of Backing the Houthi
Insurgency, Jamestown Foundation, Volume: 7 Issue: 28, September 17,
2009.

4. NewsYemen, September 8, 2009; Yemen Observer, September 10, 2009.

5. Albaidanew.com, May 14, 2009, cited in Jamestown Foundation, op.cit.

6. Abigail Hauslohner, Despite U.S. Aid, Yemen Faces Growing al-Qaeda Threat, Time, December 22, 2009, accessed in www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,1949324,00.html#ixzz0be0NL7Cv.

7. Tariq al Fadhli, in Al-Sharq al-Awsat, May 14, 2009, cited in Jamestown Foundation, op. cit.

8. al-Wahayshi interview, al Jazeera, May 14, 2009.

9. US Government, Department of Energy, Energy Information Administration, Bab el-Mandab, accessed in http://www.eia.doe.gov/cabs/World_Oil_Transit_Chokepoints/Full.html.

10 Adelphi Energy, Yemen Exploration Blocks 7 & 74, accessed in http://www.adelphienergy.com.au/projects/Proj_Yemen.php.